2015.02.26

If sentences could be synonyms, this one would be synonymous with "Squeeeee!!!!"

We dreamed big, did little, which is probably what we always do. The peanut butter restaurant, which I always vow to visit when guests are in town, remains unpatronized. Roller skating? Didn't happen. The Conservatory? Uh huh. The kouign aman and pain au chocolat and winter walks? Nope.

I love winter, and I love cold, but I'm no fool. When the mercury reads -10 (and mind, the mercury doesn't read wind chill), I love winter best when framed by six panes, preferably viewed from beside a blaze-orange fire.

So we watched movies, and worked puzzles, and played games, old and new. We dove into the gifts Annette is known for, building stuff, braiding hair, making a mess. Some of us sampled some of the edibles. Then wrote out warning labels, post haste.

(I lost a crown to the Dr. Pepper licorice. Zoe, brave soul, tried the Tabasco Jelly Bellies and the (sic) Pickel Gum Ball's. Then scrawled a sign to caution fellow bold souls to stay far, far away. The boys, for their part, stuck with the chocolate. I am thinking they perhaps had a point.)

We had friends for brunch. Another synonym sentence, that. I'm pretty sure any weekend which includes "friends for brunch" qualifies, automatically, as great. Especially when Twister's involved. Double especially when the guests bring the main dish.

Extra especially when said main is one glorious, still-warm, just-baked quiche.

I arranged for a little snow, 8" or so. We shoveled. Repeatedly. And drank tea by the gallon. At one point, I opened the dishwasher and realized we might've OD'd, seeing as the mug cupboard was bare, and the dirties spilling over into the lower drawer.

In the end, we ran the thing twice, that day. Hot drinks in cold weather rank right up there with oxygen.

Meanwhile, *some* of us are so over winter, we're planting avocado pits and bulbs and mango seeds and wee tomato starts, found buried deep within well-traveled winter tomatoes. Pretty much anything that might flash green, and give off hope of the sun returning.

I am not among this "some". Spring still comes too soon, for my tastes. Besides, I do love my outdoor freezer. It cools a triple-batch of granola in no time. But I love, too, the resourceful chutzpah of the child that finds ways to bend the world to his will, toward green and growth and giddy-up-and-go. A good trick, that.

So mostly, we showed Annette a good time within the small four walls of our home, with two exceptions. First, we went to see "Mary Poppins", Saturday night, as performed by the local High School. Which as you might expect, had somewhat amateur sets. And as you, or at least I, didn't expect, had singing and acting of extraordinary excellence. I had no idea high schoolers had it in them. The next four years should be interesting.

And second, we took her out on the town. Specifically, to the local hardware and grocery stores. We hit up the first for ice melt and a snow rake, a 16-foot thing I never knew was a thing, until I learned we were at risk for an ice dam, once again. We hit up the second on a fruit and drug run (strawberries, grapefruit, Dayquil, Nyquil). I tell you, if you travel to Columbus, we will treat you well.

Anyway, we returned home from our grand outing with something like an hour to spare, between snow rake arrival and Mary Poppins' departure. An hour in which we needed to eat supper. And make supper. Ahem.

I mentioned, long ago, that I don't cook when I have company in town. Like, at all. Things haven't changed much, in five years.

However, we'd ordered Chinese the night prior. And I had little desire for an encore of pizza. (As it was, we saved that for Sunday. Good thing we didn't play that card early.)

So I did what I tend to do in these instances: grabbed the dutch oven, splashed in some olive oil, set the heat to high, and rummaged the fridge. Out came some bulk sweet Italian sausage, plus leeks, plus all the veg I could manage. Soup! Speedy, impromptu, ad hoc soup. And, as it turns out, lovely.

While the sausage sizzled and rendered its fat, we tossed in leeks and onions as we broke them down. As these melted and slumped, in the way of good alliums everywhere, Annette and I macheted carrots, kale, and sweet potatoes into submission. In went a tin of chopped tomatoes, another of chickpeas, and finally, a huge slosh of broth. (Water, in this case, amended with this. We can't roast enough chickens, this winter, to keep ahead of our head colds. It's all good.) Within half an hour, we were sitting down to a heady, hot supper of soup, BOOM!

This is "I need it now, don't make me wait, serve me seconds, and then some" soup. This is meaty and loaded with veg, rich and light and robust and such soup. This leverages the serious power of sausage, it's highly seasoned oomph and yum, and spreads the wealth over a dozen-plus bowls. This maximizes my favorite add-as-you-go methodology, prepping and cooking, simultaneously. This utilizes what you've got—add peas, or corn, or double the kale, or sub all sweet potatoes for carrots, or whatevs. This yields up a hot, hearty one-bowl supper, in around 30 minutes, start to slurp. On my own, it took a full 37 minutes. Rope in a friend, and you can hit the half-hour mark.

One warning: when first cooked, this soup is bright and vivid, the broth clear, each carrot distinct. On subsequent days, the vegetables and beans settle and swoon, relaxing into the broth, absorbing its heady scent, and thickening the whole, ever so slightly and gloriously. It is wonderful on day one, as soup, and on day three, as it lurches toward stew. I like it best of all, both ways. And it beats pickle gumballs, any day.

37-minute*, Loaded Chickpea, Kale + Sausage Soup

I used bulk sausage, here, as it tends to have more fat (a plus), but you can also use links. Just do take the time to strip them of their casing, as the irregular crumble (vs. tidy slices) seems to be integral to this soup's appeal. If using links, add an extra splash of olive oil, to make up for missing fat.

*Prep times may vary, based on personal chopping speed, and number of Annettes on hand.

In a medium dutch oven (or large stock pot), warm olive oil over medium-high heat, until shimmering. Add crumbled sausage, and cook, until cooked through and browning, bashing up clumps, and stirring occasionally, 10 minutes. While sausage is cooking, wash and slice leeks (or onions), adding them as you go. If you'd like more fennel and/or chili heat, add them now, to your liking.

While sausage and leeks are cooking, continue with your vegetable prep, peeling and chopping carrots and sweet potatoes. Once sausage is browned and leeks limp and translucent, add carrots, sweet potatoes, canned tomatoes, chickpeas, kale and salt, then add the broth. Scrape up the browned bits, and bring the whole pot to a vigorous simmer, then turn down heat to maintain a strong burble, clamp on a lid (if you have one), and simmer until all veg are tender, 15-20 minutes.

Test for seasoning, adjusting salt and pepper, to taste. Heap into bowls, top with freshly plenty of freshly grated parmesan, and dig in.

2015.02.17

I think I surprised no one more than myself when, in college, I majored in medieval art history. As in, seriously majored. I studied Latin. Dove into Romanesque corbels. Spent one long summer encased in the University of Washington's oldest, most-un-air-conditioned building, 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, attempting to osmose a full year of German in seven very short, very hot weeks. I wrote 30-page term papers detailing the onset and evolution of sumptuary laws in England and across the content between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries.

My spell-check doesn't even admit sumptuary is a word. (Trust me. It is. And boy, by now, do I know how to spell it.) I was in deep.

I was serious, and I loved it, and I never got over the surprise of that. Because on the surface, medieval art held exactly zero appeal, at least to me. Stiff courtiers and stilted angels and endless blue-robed Marys? I'll pass. Gaudy colors, shock-value violence, biblical stories, ad nauseum? No, thanks. My own aesthetic was far more Arts and Crafts: think William Morris; think Liberty of London; think Charles Rennie Mackintosh. Give me Glasgow School over gooey Madonnas, any day.

On a tea cup, anyway.

As a course of study, however, I fell for medieval art after my first elective, and fell hard. What I came to see, what I came to appreciate, was the dizzying creativity that flourished within the extreme confines of the era's art. Circumscribed by the church, girded by monarchs, the middle ages produced an extroardinary catalog of diverse, subversive, exuberant images, dancing around (and beyond, and all over, and underneath) every edge of acceptable.

Consider:

Choir stalls, supported by sculpted outcasts. Profane images, under church pews. Church ceilings, held up by corbels, peopled by figures few pontiffs would condone. Pious books of hours, each page illuminated at its heart with holy, at its edges with raucous. Lintels, littered with fantastic beasts. Jostling humanity, just below Jesus. Thinly veiled pagan images, in, on and around churches, everywhere. Gargoyles were just the beginning.

It was, I think, a negotiation between past and present, sacred and profane, the teeming masses and the ecclesiastic powers that were, worked out in stone and ink and glass. A truce, of sorts, between the common man and the clerics, in tense, tentative, glorious terms.

(Or so I enthused before the Mellon committee, long ago. At the time, based on their unrelenting questions and absolutely unyielding expressions, I felt fairly sure they found me a hot air balloon, full of stuff and nonsense. Then again, they rang me back, said I'd won. So there's that.)

Oh, gosh, sorry. My inner un-Ph.D. is showing. Right-O. What I loved, still love, were the all the excellent ways medievals found to wring soaring creativity from tremendous confines. How they invented endlessly, mercilessly, exquisitely, all within the church's steep limits. Re-branding old images, resurrecting ancient customs, retrofitting pre-Christian ideas for church-y times. They took limits as prompts. Rules as freedom. Constraint as endless inspiration. Made me wonder what they would have made of peg people.

HOWever, there is this: as we've spent the past months leafing through Margaret Bloom's utterly fantastic Making Peg Dolls & More, I kept coming back to those medieval journeymen, those sculptors and illuminators who saw within the narrowest of confines, the wide-open of inifinty. Bloom's right up there with the best of them.

In this, her second book, a dashing follow-up to her first (both, staples in our library), Margaret once again takes up that humble, anonymous wooden peg, as first principle and brilliant prompt. Making with kids is always a good time, and the possibilities (hello, Pinterest!) are endless. This is wonderful. This is dreadful. Drowning amidst all the options is dead-easy.

What I so love about Margaret's work is the way she takes this one small starting point, the inches-high, inexpensive, happy-in-your-hands wooden peg, and transforms it, endlessly. Who knew that basic peg + head bump could be a swashbuckling pirate, a mermaid, an angel, a red (!) felt-y octopus (!!). Probably a gargoyle, too. And these are just the beginning.

With felt, paint, pegs, and little else, save a giddy excess of creativity, Margaret lays out all manner of peg projects, simple to sophisticated, united by charming. On a recent wintry afternoon, we spent hours (HOURS!) absorbed in the task of bringing a dozen small pegs to life. Some followed Margaret's foolproof instructions to a T. Others took her ideas as jumping off points. Still others had nothing at all to do with the brilliant projects she so clearly outlined.

And indeed, these were some of my favorite. And, I suspect, she'd entirely approve. Thing is, once you get started with those pegs, a person can't help but see potential. My middle, for example, began by admiring the pirates; then dreamed up a woodsman; then wound up making a full series of sprites: earth, fire, wind, and (not pictured) air. You won't find these anywhere in the book. Which is sort of the point. Inspiration starts here. Sometimes, limits are grand, bumpers within which to do your best work.

If you've been around here any time at all, you'll know I don't usually do blog tours. Don't usually, as in, don't ever. Rules are made to be broken. For Margaret, I make an exception, because this book, like her last, is dear to our hearts. We're not alone. For many more wonderful takes on her latest, do check out the other tour stops:

These are my Nana's mushrooms, the ones she made nearly every time I passed a day at her house. Her pans were thrifted; her stove, ancient; her budget, non-existent; her mushrooms, transcendent. She's been gone since my oldest was six weeks old; he's halfway to fifteen. Still, I can see her stirring a skillet of these mushrooms, slowly, patiently, as if we shared a plate for lunch, this very afternoon.

She began, always, with what we'll call a knob of butter, well more than a sliver, well under a cube. I use 4 Tablespoons per pound of mushrooms. Trust me on this. Therein lies the gold.

While the butter melts, slowly, slowly, the mushrooms are rinsed, trimmed, and sliced. This is, incidentally, an excellent job for children of four or more. Mushrooms are one of the simplest and most satisfying of vegetables to slice, soft, yielding, small. A table knife will do the job, though a sharp paring knife is well learned, here. However it happens, the sliced mushrooms are tipped into the skillet of now-molten butter, salted, tossed, and—crucial, this—allowed to give up all their juices. In my Nana's kitchen, this required monastic patience, something like sixty-five years. Maybe it was more like thirty minutes. Anyway, way too long.

She would steadfastly stir, now and again, as high heat and time worked their magic, encouraging the water-laden funghi to, over time, release their liquid, and then, over more time still (sixty-six?), concentrate and consume what was lost, until not a speck of liquid remained, and the now-dry, condensed, intense mushrooms would sizzle and fry in the latent butter, going golden and caramelized and intensely savory and a little bit crisp, here and there, at the edges. If we'd had the word umami, back then, we would have used it. In all caps. As it was, we had bell bottoms and leg warmers and feathered hair and all manner of eighties atrocities, and none of it mattered, because we had golden mushrooms.

These are lovely slipped into omelettes, toppled over chicken, heaped high on buttered toast, tossed with pasta, or simply brightened with parsley and lemon. In practice, though, we eat them most often as I did with my Nana, straight-up, by the forkful. And frankly, this is my most favorite way.

And while button mushrooms are available year-round, I only ever make these in the dark, cold months. I've talked before about my love of winter cooking, of the comfort I derive from a spare pantry and stark choices. To be sure, any stark in these modern times is somewhat artificial, fairly contrived. Thank goodness. Abundance is good; year-round produce, a miracle. I'm as grateful that we're not truly reduced to sauerkraut and souring salt pork, as I am for the occasional Florida berry. Still, there's that nudge, that everywhere-reminder that these are lean times, all limits, no bounty.

There is, I think, real value in plying one's constraints, making the simple, exquisite. Stone blocks. Book margins. Wooden pegs. Button mushrooms. Real pleasure in working within limits

Golden Mushroomsfrom Nana

Common button and cremini mushrooms both work well here. And while I've no doubt chanterelles and their ilk would shine in this preparation, I've never bothered; this is all about the basic made glorious, with a little butter, attention and time. Also, please note that I nearly always double this to 2#, as a) mushrooms shrink tenfold, and b) there are never enough.

Melt butter in your widest skillet, ideally one with a lid. (My 12" skillet has no lid, but my stock pot lid does the job nicely. The lid, in other words, need only span the gap, not match, like shoes and purse.) Add sliced mushrooms to melted butter, sprinkle 1/2 tsp. salt over, and stir mushrooms to thoroughly coat. With heat on high, cover skillet, and let mushrooms release their liquid, stirring occasionally, 5-7 minutes, depending on mushrooms, skillet size, and lid situation. (If you've no lid, this simply takes a bit longer.)

Once mushrooms are awful-looking and sloppy and all aswim, remove lid, and let the reduction begin. Allow liquid to evaporate, stirring occasionally, until pan is dry, 5-7 minutes. When all liquid is gone, continue to cook, stirring attentively, every 30 seconds or so, adjusting heat to perhaps a hottish medium to keep mushrooms browning but not burning, until the slices are sizzling and caramelized and golden on nearly all sides, roughly 2-3 minutes after the last drop of liquid has left the pan. Taste, adjust for salt, and inhale directly.

2015.02.12

The bread was supermarket-aisle sourdough, the sort that stays fresh for three weeks, easy. The turkey was Jennie-O, a plastic-wrapped loaf, thickly cut in irregular slices. There were tomatoes, crisp, out of season. Lettuce: iceberg. French's mustard. I ate that sandwich twenty years ago. It was, and is, the pinnacle for me of all that great food can and should be.

I was young, see, just twenty two, in college, coming off finals, just getting over a bad head cold. That morphed into the flu. Then, double pneumonia. With a side of broken ribs. Though I didn't know it at the time. Well, I knew the cold. I just thought it a particularly wicked one.

As in, five days in a fevered horizontal haze, unable to walk, speak, move or eat. I never don't eat. Ever. This should've been a clue. I was too dazed and confused for clues.

Eventually, I would find my way to Hall Health, to a kind doctor with a stethoscope, who heard the crackly symphony in both lungs, spied the clouds (and snapped ribs) on the xray, prescribed some pretty life-altering antibiotics.

All's well that ends well.

But first, there was that turkey sandwich. Prepared by my then-boyfriend, who had steadfastly brought aspirin, and water, and cool towels, and countless small comforts, all those many long run-on days. And when, after the better part of a week, I could contemplate, if not sitting, propping my head half-upright, he seized the moment and made me a meal, a sandwich. The best sandwich ever. I may be biased.

(Obviously, I married the man.)

The next best meal I've ever eaten was potato soup, just last week. My dear friend Pam arrived with a pot, still hot, just before collecting my kids from school. There was fresh bread also, and cookies, and chocolate, and smoked fish for those who like it stirred in. It was, she stressed, "just" potato soup, "our" potato soup, even, that simplest of simples. Simple is a relative term.

In practice, it was one part life raft, one part unearned karma, and six parts elixir. It solved problems and filled bellies and brought smiles and nourished bodies and buoyed spirits and kept kitchens clean that would otherwise have been wrecked. It was survival disguised as dinner, bundled up in a plain brown cardboard box. And it tasted so, so good.

See, last Wednesday, after nursing sick kidlets all week, I finally got them well, got them launched, walked into my house, walked up the stairs... and couldn't. It was the weirdest thing. I sat there, feeling very Christopher Robin, halfway up, halfway down, for a good ten minutes.

You know the sinking feeling.

I hadn't had the flu since The #1 Turkey Sandwich, so it took me a while to recognize it.

In retrospect, it's hard to miss.

And it reminded me, all over again, how acutely, how fervently, we eat when we're fevered. Or just recovering. All food is illuminated.

Maybe a person cannot rightly judge when ten hours ago, they couldn't cross the room. Maybe taste buds are desperate for attention. Maybe hardtack and pond water go down like manna, after a storm. I don't know. I don't think so. I think there's something essential about these foods people feed us, when we're down.

Maybe we see food for what it really is, this riot of pleasure, available daily. If we're very lucky, thrice daily. On repeat, spoon upon spoon. Maybe we simply notice each ping and pop of flavor and texture all anew. The way voices all sound louder, for awhile. The way colors almost vibrate, for their bright.

Probably it's what they call mindful. I think I prefer magic. There's always this pixie dust quality to these meals, a deliverance all out of proportion to the potatoes in pot. I felt the same way when friends brought meals after each of my babes was born. My youngest just celebrated her seventh (hastily re-scheduled, with store-bought cake, and cobbled-together plans, see above) birthday. My oldest is my height. Those meals are old. Still, I remember them in crystalline detail, who brought what, when, and how fully it filled us. How each of those meals felt vital. Like resurrection foods. Phoenix foods. Etch-a-Sketch foods, **shake, shake!**, brand new you.

Yes, I'm probably still hallucinating.

Let's talk lentil soup.

Because there's this second circle of awesome, just after foods brought by friends, namely those first meals you are able to make yourself, once you are yourself again. Once the world has stopped spinning, and gravity behaves, and legs, also, and you've found up. It's a pretty great feeling, feeding yourself. I imagine it's how a baby feels when, after months of poking spoonfuls of mashed peas into eyes and ears and noses, theirs and yours, they finally, finally make the mouth. Victory, independence, yum.

The third best meal I've eaten, in a very long while anyway, is this lentil soup, which I made myself (!) when I could stand again. Even if only long enough to chop vegetables. The potato soup pot was scraped clean; one child had relapsed and was home again; I was still not, as my mom says, steady on my pins. But I was steady enough for soup. And I only had tastebuds for one: Peter Miller's lentil soup.

There's nothing particularly unique about this soup, only that it is wonderful and balanced and profoundly savory and deeply (3-bowl minimum) more-ish and just what I always want in a lentil soup. And had never, before Miller, been able to find. I should clarify, here, that the lentil soup of which I speak is of the Italian/European genre, the start-with-celery-and-carrots sort. I make, and love, many lentil soups that lean toward Southeast Asia. Those spiked with lime and red curry paste, hepped up on fish sauce, coconut milk unctuous. Or others that tilt toward India, fragrant with ginger and cardamom and swirled at the end with a heady cumin/coriander/chili tarka. Now, those are some lentil soups.

But mainstream lentil soup? Oy. It always seems a synonym for earnest inexpensive fare. For healthy. For honest. For stoicism masquerading as lunch. And honestly, I'm all for all of those things. (Well, except that last one. Mealtime's no time to be a martyr.) But must they be so stodgy, so bland, so dull, so relentlessly brown? Not if you ask Miller. Or me. (Well, except the brown bit. But, um, chocolate's brown, too?)

It's jumping off point is Miller's Lunch at the Shop, the praises of which I've sung before, and will surely sing again. Miller has a way of building layers and layers of flavor, without spending hours and hours doing so. As pertains to this soup (which is in fact a mash-up of two different dishes), he begins with a good hit of bacon, chopped and browned, which flavors everything that follows. The soffrito that follows (cue the celery-onion-carrots) bathes in that excellent bacon-y goodness, and carries it out into the later pot like a thousand small bacon-studded stars. From there, the soup's a half-hour simmer, give or take, as the lentils soften and split at their seams and sigh a little, until lush and creamy. It's good at this point.

It's about to be better.

Because Miller thentops each bowl with a fling of minced parsley, vivid, sharp, charismatic, which wakes up the calm canvas like nobody's business. And then, then, you add a heap of fresh parmesan.

People.

Parmesan on lentil soup? Revelation. All that salty excellent umami transforms little lentils, something outrageous. Then, that bacon. And if you take Miller's advice, a bit of butter. You know that soaring feeling.

I thought it was unbeatable, as is, rich and light and hearty, incredibly round, ripped with flavor, one of the most satisfying soups I know. I stand by that. I must, however, also confess that ever since Luisa posted her braised beans, I've been adding a clutch of fresh rosemary to the base, and a cup of red wine as part of the stock, and, well.

WHOAH.

Just, beyond.

This past week, as I gratefully downed bowl after bowl (after bowl; I've made three batches since Thursday), I found myself thinking, "...like the best beef stew meets a superior french onion meets a stellar bologenese, only better, by far..." Of course, given the events of the past few weeks, I may be biased. You decide.

Like all great soups, this is a foundation upon which to play, pretty much endlessly. Sometimes, I double the carrots. I add and adore diced parsnips when I have them (and don't fret when I don't). Slivered chard would, I'm sure, be fantastic. When I'm all out of chicken broth, I'll use water and a few teaspoons of Better than Bouillon. All good. I've marked The Luisa Braised Beans Variation as optional, because I've loved the soup for six months prior. But oh, do give it a go. That rosemary, that red wine, they rock the pot. Very burlap and pearls. I suspect a bang-up vegetarian version could be made by skipping the bacon at the outset, and dropping in as many parmesan rinds as you can scrounge up, just after the lentils and broth are added. Mmmm...

Warm olive oil over medium heat in a Dutch oven or large soup pot, and add chopped bacon. Cook bacon, stirring occasionally, until brown and just crisp. While bacon is cooking, chop your onion. Add onions, salt and rosemary, if using, to crisp bacon and rendered fat, and stir to coat. Let soften and caramelize, stirring occasionally, ten minutes or so, while you continue with your chopping. Chop celery; add; stir. Chop carrots; add; stir. Chop parsnips; add; stir. Let it all mingle and soften and sink into itself, stirring every several minutes, until your veg are roughly half their former volume and limp as old rags, 20-25 minutes, from onions to end. Adjust heat as necessary to keep vegetables from burning.

Once you have your pot of rags, add the tomatoes, stir, and cook another 5 minutes, letting the tomato juices deglaze all the good bits, and the tomatoes themselves caramelize ever so slightly. When the sounds turn from burble to almost-sizzle, add your 6 cups of broth/water/wine, and stir well, noodging at the corners to get up the glorious sticky bits. Add lentils, stir again, and bring to the boil. Turn heat down to a warmish-low, or wherever keeps the pot at a steady slow burble. Cook until lentils are absolutely tender, beginning to split here and there, even collapse. This is lentil soup, not salad. Mine take anywhere from 25-40 minutes, depending on age, type and size. I spoon out a wee bowl around the 25 minute mark, sample, and determine next steps. One tough lentil, and I continue with the cooking. Lentils should be buttery-creamy, not toothsome. And when given the time, lentils do buttery-creamy exceptionally well.

Once lentils are done to your liking, taste and adjust seasoning, adding more salt (likely), a splash of vinegar (if not using wine), pepper, if you're into that sort of thing. Next, you have a choice regarding texture: smooth-ish or chunky? I love both versions very best of all. If you like a structured slurp, chunky, identifiable, soup's on! If you prefer something closer to a creamy stew, pulse a stick blender right in the pot, just a few times. I aim to blitz just the bottom layer, to thicken up the broth a bit, meanwhile leaving plenty of bits and bobs intact, for interest and intrigue. Also optional, at this point, is the butter, which you can stir into the pot, add by the knob to each bowl, or leave out entire. It adds a certain ineffable richness, but it isn't necessary. I go both ways.

Ladle big bowls full, top with minced parsley and generous piles of parmesan, more than you think proper. You're welcome.